Introducing the Money Mindset Series
November 27, 2007
(Photo by jepoirrier)
One of the most common reasons for unhappiness is money issues. Your success at managing and handling money has a lot of impact on other areas of your life like relationships and career. For example, I have heard of many stories about couples who constantly quarrel about money, and also stories of people who are stuck to their unsatisfying job because they need the money to pay bills/debts. These are examples of people whose quality of life are being affected by poor money management:
- If the couples know how to talk about and manage money as a couple, there will certainly be less arguments because of money.
- If a person knows how to manage money and not get him/herself into debt, then he/she will have more freedom to move to another more satisfying job.
Money matters are important matters, and you should give some conscious thoughts to how you currently handle money and the mindset behind it.
When I first examined my money mindset, I was surprised to find some beliefs that were actually hindering my success at money matters. I didn’t realize that I had such mindsets until I did a guided exercise to review it. Some of my mindsets are good and aligned with my goals, but some of not aligned and I was unknowingly sabotaging myself against my financial goals.
I believe you will benefit from this exercise too. As such, I will be posting a ‘Money Mindset’ series in the coming days to help you be more aware of your money mindset.
WHY MONEY MINDSET?
Our actions are driven by our emotions, which are in turn driven by our beliefs and thoughts i.e. mindset. As such, the quality of your thoughts is the biggest determinant of the results you achieve in your life today. This is the same for money matters.
In order to improve your financial status on a sustainable basis, we need to work on your money mindset as follows:
- Awareness - the first step is to be aware of your thoughts that driving your emotions and actions. Let’s take a hypothetical example: maybe Peter’s financial goal is to save up for financial freedom, but he is a big spendthrift and it’s not helping his financial goal. What’s the beliefs underlying such a behavior? Maybe Peter thinks that wearing branded goods will make him feel good by appearing to be rich.
- Understand - the second step is to understand why you are thinking in this way. You’ll be surprised at how you simply takes your beliefs for granted and not question if those beliefs are helping you in the first place. This step is to understand the basis of your beliefs. Continuing with Peter’s example - the underlying thinking could be that Peter desires to be seen as successful in life; he wants to be seen as an achiever by appearing to be rich.
- Recondition - once you have understand the mindset that’s hindering you from financial success, you can actually rationalize your way around those mindsets and instill new, supporting mindsets. Still on Peter’s example - to arrive at financial freedom, Peter must understand that ‘appearing rich’ is actually sabotaging his goals. As such, he must reduce his spendthrift habits and learn to grow his money to reach his goals.
MONEY MINDSET SERIES
This will be a 5-parts series as follows:
- Development Awareness and Understanding Of Your Money Mindset - the first part will be a guided exercise to review your current money mindsets. You will learn to be aware of your mindsets and understand the rationale behind it. You will also see if your mindset is aligned with your goals and supporting the concept of living a balanced life.
- Recondition - Old School Money Thinking - the rest of the series will be focused on correcting some common money mindsets that are sabotaging your success towards a balanced life. I have talked a little about the old money mindset in Why Schools Should Teach Personal Finance and will expand on that concept here.
- Recondition - A Easier Way To Make Money - in this part of the series, I will talk about the prevailing mindset behind making money and why such mindset is not supporting living a balanced life.
- Recondition - Consumer Spending - another common pitfall of money mindset is over-indulgence in consumer spending. I will be talking about the mindsets behind such behavior and how to adjust your mindset to support good money management and a balance life.
- Money Mindset And A Balanced Life - in the conclusion, I will summarized what was discussed in the series and tie it all back to living a balanced life.
CLOSING REMARKS
I didn’t come from a background which gave me strong, supporting money mindsets. Correcting my money mindsets and aligning them to my goals have been instrumental in getting me to where I am today: I enjoy a sense of well-being that I live on a day-to-day basis because I seldom worry about money issues.
The money mindset series is my contribution to share my experiences in this change, and I believe that you will benefit greatly from it. So please stay tuned for the series in the coming days.
LINKS TO THE SERIES
- Awareness, Understanding And Reconditioning (Money Mindset Series I)
- Why You Should Stop Working Hard For Job Security (Money Mindset Series II)
- One Easy And Safe Way To Grow Your Money (Money Mindset Series III)
- A Smarter Way To Pursue Your Dream Lifestyle (Money Mindset Series IV)
- Can Money Buy Happiness (Money Mindset Series V)
I look forward to this series, Lawrence! I agree that exploring our mindset towards money is important. I encounter so many people who have a love/hate relationship with money. They want to have it, and at the same time resent having to deal with it at all.
Blessings,
Andrea
Brilliant stuff Lawrence, really looking forward to reading more from this series. I’m really finding that attitude towards money is key, just as Andrea said. Think and Grow Rich helps a lot, but doesn’t deal with the negativity regarding money. Can’t wait, mate!
Hi Andrea, Albert,
You guys are great!
thanks for your encouragement and support. To be very frank, I was afraid that directly talking about money matters will negatively affect my readership. Talking about money is commonly connoted as being mercenary and insincere (well, at least from an Asian context, it commonly is…). This may seem contrary to a blog talking about personal development and leading a balanced life, but it is not.
My life experiences have shown me that refusing to engage in direct, honest conversations about money is one of the common negative mindsets that causing an imbalance life.
I’m sure the series will clarify this idea and readers will see where I am coming from
Hi Lawrence,
Your money mindset seems very similar to the 4 components of success that I outlined in a previous post: http://www.darksociologist.com/2007/09/30/the-4-components-of-success/ except geared towards financial success, rather than general success. Seems like great minds think alike, eh? I’m very hopeful for this series.
Hi DS,
thanks for sharing your thoughts and article. I have taken a look, and it appears to me that we are talking about two different issues:
Nonetheless, I still think you have written a good article.
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Great piece of reading. I have recently immigrated and had to start all over. After just over a year I have already grown tired and rebellious towards having a job. But you know what they say- Seek and you shall find.
P.S. I have noticed some grammatical errors in your piece and would like to help you fix it. Please don’t see this as an insult, I merely have a very sharp eye for this kind of thing.
Reggards,
Rudi Henning